Turns out, Barbieland isn't as gay as s queer fans had hoped

Contents:

• GAY HISTORY: AFTER STONEWALL CLON, CLOSETS AND COS
• OP-ED: THE GAY CLON EVERYONE KNOWS
• POLIL-ENOMIC NSTCTN OF GAY MALE CLONE INTY
• ATTACK OF THE CLON: ATHETIC AND POLIL CONFORMY AMONG WHE GAY MEN.
• TURNS OUT, BARBIELAND ISN'T AS GAY AS S QUEER FANS HAD HOPED

GAY HISTORY: AFTER STONEWALL CLON, CLOSETS AND COS

“The clone was a reactn to thgs you would see movi of gay men beg flty and nelly, ” says John Calendo, a wrer who lived LA and New York Cy throughout the 70s and 80s, and worked as an edor at the clone-cubatg sk mags Blueboy and In Touch for Men.

”) “That’s the kd of imagery”—backwards stereotyp that basilly villaized queer people—“that a lot of my generatn who beme the clone people grew up wh the ccible of the 60s, ” Calendo ntu, when the civil rights and gay liberatn movements were expandg ias of equaly and eedom. Drsg like a clone, he says, was a rejectn of those olr gay ’s not so easy to ppot precisely who origated the clone ial, guys who were alive at the time ually brg up Al Parker, an adult film star turned producer and director who worked om the 70s to the early 90s.

“The clone look was certaly about a whe gay man’s rponse and engagement wh those archetyp, ” says Ben Barry, the an of the school of fashn at the New School’s Parsons School of Dign, whose rearch foc on fashn’s relatnship to masculy, sexualy, and the body.

OP-ED: THE GAY CLON EVERYONE KNOWS

But like a newly mted AARP member flippg through their high school yearbook, the morn gay rights movement’s “Big five-oh” moment brgs, wh s flood of memori, certa hard qutns—not the least of which is: What posssed you to wear that? “I have, fortunately, no photos publicly available of me durg my ’70s platform sho and glter rock perd, ” says Joseph Hawks, director of the ONE Natnal Gay and Lbian Library and Archiv at the USC Librari, who spoke wh the Bla about how the thgs we put our leral closet n liberate om the figurative one (or keep there). “It noted serns of mment to beg gay and beg mascule, as well as beg cisive about what kd of sex you were after, ” Bby noted, of the “alignment of stume and behavr… unmistakable symbols of sexual preference, such as blue or red handkerchiefs left or right rear pockets of jeans, to dite top or bottom.

“I lled the ‘A-Gays, ’ a standard that is unobtaable” yet sirable and pursued, Wallace rells, also notg the Chelsea Boy look shared s time the sun wh “gnge and goth, the alternative kids who, no matter how hard they tried, uld not f . I've certaly read about Ana Bryant's pie to the face and Barney Frank's youthful(ish) discretns, but what really gets me to a time warp k-hole are the now-disntued personals and advertisements for bars, clubs, and "spas"; you get to see how gay men really prented themselv and what the often-warped standard of bety the issue is om the '60s, the featured guys are smooth, mcled, and whe (diversy wasn't our strong su back then). Sce I haven't been to a gay bar six months (too much effort), I cid to pese -- our sister se and arber of gayville -- to see what the predomant gay look is the attentn was pulled strongly and swiftly toward "The 30 Sexit Gay Sex Scen Film" (unlike fashn, men never change).

POLIL-ENOMIC NSTCTN OF GAY MALE CLONE INTY

AbstractThis chapter reviss Fouult’s brief, fluential terview “Friendship as a Way of Life” orr to terrogate what his figuratn of iendship means for trans, tersex, of lor, and otherwise non-homonormative subjects who are so often relegated to the outskirts of the circus of homonormative timaci—fetishized and spectacularized while barred om prehensn as legible sexual partners.

ATTACK OF THE CLON: ATHETIC AND POLIL CONFORMY AMONG WHE GAY MEN.

A ncrete analysis of negative aspects of the Gay Clone Liftyle, wh a particular foc upon the premier gay clone dg, "poppers" (or nre halants), is ntrasted to the sultory verbalizg characteristic of most social nstctnist wrg. " Neverthels, the clone liftyle me to prevail all over the world, so that an entire generatn of gay men fed their own inti terms of adherence to clonism: ltle mtach; very short haircuts; plaid flannel shirts, boots, nim or leather jackets; a particular repertoire of movements, sounds, facial exprsns, dg takg, and sexual practic. Although homosexual relatnships were, of urse, regnized prr to Kertbeny, he was among the first to argue that one’s sexual preference and genr inty was nate – not a choice – and that a gay man should not be equated wh effemacy by potg to great hero of antiquy who were gay.

One of the biblil passag most often ced the prent to nmn same-sex relatnships, Romans 1:24-27, any translatn, mentns how men and women gave up "natural relatns for unnatural" and mted "shamels acts" but, the ntext of the whole passage, this should be unrstood as referencg idolatro behavr – behavg as pagans did at i – rather than a mted gay relatnship. Although there is certaly evince of negative personal views toward homosexual practic pre-Christian civilizatn, the seem to have to do wh eher loss of a man’s virily and stat as a man, loss of a young woman’s virgy, or, the se of certa perds of Roman history, extreme licentns and promiscuy.

TURNS OUT, BARBIELAND ISN'T AS GAY AS S QUEER FANS HAD HOPED

” “Crew cuts, motach, plaid shirts, that very macho look which had actually e across om Ameri – was the first time gay men were actually drsg to imate the same people they wanted to have sex wh, ” says Warl, who lks the athetic to that of the workg class Amerin man.

Leve was a participant as well as an observer of gay culture the 1970s, and this perspective allowed him to pture the te flavor of what was like to be a gay man before chapters, based on Leve's pathbreakg empiril rearch, explore some of the epimlogil and social nsequenc of the AIDS epimic on this particular substratum of the gay muny. Ined, discsns of Man’s cup of tea referenced the Boston Tea Party and Kerm the Frog, but did not refer to gay culture at all—no mentn of anonymo sex public toilets, the place of gossip among gay men, or Black drag culture. Exampl om Gershon Legman’s (1941) glossary clu “playg checkers” (movg om seat to seat a movie theater search of other gay men) or “church moe” (a person who viss church orr to grope other men or cise for sexual partners).

Of urse, gossip was ccial not only for knowg where to succsfully fd other gay men and how to protect one’s reputatn, but also as a way to spread awarens of “rough tra”—straight-intifyg men who have a history of assltg their male sexual partners.